The Presidential Debates Part Two – Substance

There was any number of 3-ton elephants lurking around that stage at Ol' Miss the other night that neither candidate dared acknowledge.  This is an especially apt metaphor as most of the issues and controversies that may or may not be debated in these rounds will have been instigated and exacerbated by Republicans.  It is my contention that neither side dare molest any of these looming creatures – the Republicans because they are their beloved pets and the Democrats because they are too spineless and because they share nearly as much culpability for the care and feeding of these ponderous pachyderms as does Bush&Co. 

One of the biggest three-tonners was the war in Iraq.  Neither candidate questioned the moral and legal basis for the war.  Also absent was any discussion of the disastrous impact our brutal occupation has had on the people of Iraq – the surge notwithstanding.  One could hardly expect McCain to mention any of this, but I hoped to hear at least a passing remark from Obama. 

Of course to do so is to call into question the sacrifice of our soldiers and the legal culpability of both the executive and legislative branches of our government before the court of international law.   This is very touchy ground here.  Obama obviously does not want to take a principled moral stance on the legality of the Iraqi war because I suspect that, in spite of his comments to the contrary, he will be forced to continue the war at present levels throughout the full duration of his term.  If this does come to pass (and I will certainly do everything within my meager sphere of influence to see that it doesn't) President Obama could face the same degree of approbation that Bush does – including war criminal accusations. 

That is why the discussion never got much past failed strategies and tactics.  What candidate in his/her right mind would contend that it is essential that we lose in Iraq and lose big?  We need to learn again the Vietnam way, the lesson of all rogue states and their criminal regimes: that ultimately, history, if no one else, deals harshly with such crimes and criminals, be they Lyndon Johnson, Pol Pot, Vladimir Putin or George W. Bush. 

Even arguing on behalf of authentic morality in the polluted intellectual atmosphere of the 21st Century makes me fully realize how archaic, quaint and out of touch I am.  Morality is dead in Amerika.  Even for the end-timey, fundamentalist Christians, pragmatism and relativism are their only absolutes.  Daily I thank the gods that I don't have to try to raise children in this climate.  It would drive me insane.

The second of the many other elephants in the room I would like to briefly highlight here is the issue of energy.  Again the two candidates dealt with choices that will have little actual impact on how we surmount the impending energy crisis that is destined to create a profound material impoverishment in our lives.  This energy crisis will come to make the current fiscal crisis look like a damp sparkler at a Fourth of July celebration.  It is well and good to explore energy alternatives that may eventually help civilization limp through a century that could (and perhaps should) be our last. But none of these alternatives will bring back the days of pre-peak-oil Eden.

Of course neither candidate is categorically opposed to the nuclear power that I regard as the most dangerous energy source ever designed by man.  Atomic energy is the single most palpable manifestation of humanity's death wish.

My objection is not as much directed against Iran's alleged desire to build the atomic bomb (after all, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect them to want some balancing deterrent to Israel's nukes?) but to their unwise decision to power themselves with the atom. 

Clearly the largest ignored three-ton elephant in the room at Ol'Miss the other night was the issue of conservation and reduction of our energy consumption.  What we most badly need is a leader who will not ask us and the rest of the world to just "go shopping."   Indeed our very survival on the planet requires, a radical shift in our whole way of life.  We are rapidly coming to face only one of two options that neither candidate is willing to address:  1) a painful sacrifice in turning around our unsustainable lifestyles now – 2) or death, disaster and the extinction of modern civilized life later.  Our selfish, squandering of the planet's finite resources is at an end whether we want it look it in the face or not and someone in power had better awaken to that fact. 

In spite of this, I still support Obama, even though I realize that by the time he assumes office, even a far, far better man would be doomed to fail.  The situation is really that dire.  I am left with the only two choices remaining for the voters in this election: Obama or a joke.  I certainly missed Ralph Nader at that debate.  He would have dispatched more than a couple of those pesky pachyderms forthwith.  Sometimes I think he is the last sane man on the planet.  That is why neither candidate could possibly abide his presence in the debates.

Peace,

Robert Boldt an editor of MWC News, is a freelance film/video producer living in Jefferson City, Missouri. He is active in local politics, worked on the Howard Dean and John Kerry campaigns and is a cofounder of The White Rose Collective. Articles by Bob Boldt at MWC News http://mwcnews.net/bob-boldt

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